Shannon

Ally wrote:

halfwise wrote:I also must remark on the incompatibility of your three goals.  I can't but admire that for such a young age.  Most people take decades before they realize life is irreducibly complicated.

Oh, I spent a lot of time dwelling on how incompatible they seemed, especially with those last two things. It's challenging to be nomadic when you need weekly trips to the GP & pharmacy. As a university student, I did hitchhike for months at a time (long summer holidays!) buying food from shops which I cooked up on my little backpacking stove. Wild camping where I could. Trying to live outdoors as much as I could.

I suspect a lot of people wonder how their lives would have played out if they hadn't got a steady job and 'grown-up'. I know everyone wants the life they can't have & I'm not unhappy. But the freedom was enticing, and I still daydream about living like that.

Lots of my friends tell me that they dream of buying a small rural homestead with the person they love. I actually think that would probably result in a happier life than living like a Jack London or Kerouac character.

The middle ground for disparate dreams, I guess.

So now I know what you have been up to all this time. Having a damn adventure! And adventures are not always rides in the sunshine. As to you growing up, I grew up and have never ceased to regret it. I tried to warn one of my nieces about growing up and not to do it, and she reminded me of the fact about a year ago. Well, she didn’t listen. Ally, rather than running off for seven years with dwarves (or worse?) and dueling with dragons and beating off dark men with hungry eyes and struggling with your damn gender, you should have stayed here and remained a child permanently. I got here too old to be young again, but you were young when you got here and have no excuses! Young people never seek the advice of the old and wise and creepy - sometimes needy, that’s why they’re creepy, don’t I know, oh, don’t I know! Young people just go on out into the wide world beyond the comforting river bank and their dear old friend, Ratty, and only get older and wiser, only to regret it.

Not long ago I was in a cabin in the mountains above Santa Fe with an old friend and a typically cheerful young lass.  Said CYL was somewhat put out at how juvenile middle aged men could be when with old friends, and we reminded her that we were her age when we met, and acting your age was a terrible trap.  But for some reason young women want older men to act older and wiser, and we were having none of it.  She's a Russian working for the UN, lives in Rome and spends half her time travelling to places like Zanzibar and Malaysia but frets her life is going nowhere.  How little she knows she will look back decades later and realize these are her fullest years.

{{ Who needs toilets when nature provides acres of fields and grows toilet paper all round! }}

I've used green toilet paper many a time...but usually follow it by a final dip in the river to finish the process off. (Don't tell the folks downriver.)

Me, if I have to leave home, only stay at hotels.

So you're just a pawn of the hotel industrial complex. You'll never be truly free.

Orwell wrote:Me, if I have to leave home, only stay at hotels.

Me too, and nothing less than 4 star and preferably 5 star hotels.

I am so done with shitting in the woods.

I did the Inca Trail hike to Macchu Piccu a decade or so back. You spend a couple nights in Cuzco to acclimate. My friends had a 4 star hotel. I rebelled. I didn't fly halfway around the world to ignore the fact that I was in Cuzco each night, and decamped to a backpacker hotel, which had it's own charm and we each still had our own toilet. You had to turn on the heater to warm up your 5 gallons of shower water each morning, but that reminded me I was in Cuzco and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Mrs Figg wrote:

Orwell wrote:Me, if I have to leave home, only stay at hotels.

Me too, and nothing less than 4 star and preferably 5 star hotels.

I am so done with shitting in the woods.

I never knew that about you....

halfwise wrote:I did the Inca Trail hike to Macchu Piccu a decade or so back.  You spend a couple nights in Cuzco to acclimate.  My friends had a 4 star hotel.  I rebelled.  I didn't fly halfway around the world to ignore the fact that I was in Cuzco each night, and decamped to a backpacker hotel, which had it's own charm and we each still had our own toilet.  You had to turn on the heater to warm up your 5 gallons of shower water each morning, but that reminded me I was in Cuzco and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Well, if that’s the rules, you’ll never see me in Cuzco.

Orwell wrote:

Mrs Figg wrote:

Orwell wrote:Me, if I have to leave home, only stay at hotels.

Me too, and nothing less than 4 star and preferably 5 star hotels.

I am so done with shitting in the woods.

I never knew that about you....

I still have that talent, its just latent.

Orwell wrote:

halfwise wrote:I did the Inca Trail hike to Macchu Piccu a decade or so back.  You spend a couple nights in Cuzco to acclimate.  My friends had a 4 star hotel.  I rebelled.  I didn't fly halfway around the world to ignore the fact that I was in Cuzco each night, and decamped to a backpacker hotel, which had it's own charm and we each still had our own toilet.  You had to turn on the heater to warm up your 5 gallons of shower water each morning, but that reminded me I was in Cuzco and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Well, if that’s the rules, you’ll never see me in Cuzco.

Oh you can have your hotel.  It was built to mimic the local style, with a beautiful buffet for each meal using local produce, and selected arts/craft vendors in the courtyard so you could buy without being mobbed by street merchants.  You could even venture outside the gates to see the town, nobody would stop you.

halfwise wrote:

Orwell wrote:

halfwise wrote:I did the Inca Trail hike to Macchu Piccu a decade or so back.  You spend a couple nights in Cuzco to acclimate.  My friends had a 4 star hotel.  I rebelled.  I didn't fly halfway around the world to ignore the fact that I was in Cuzco each night, and decamped to a backpacker hotel, which had it's own charm and we each still had our own toilet.  You had to turn on the heater to warm up your 5 gallons of shower water each morning, but that reminded me I was in Cuzco and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Well, if that’s the rules, you’ll never see me in Cuzco.

Oh you can have your hotel.  It was built to mimic the local style, with a beautiful buffet for each meal using local produce, and selected arts/craft vendors in the courtyard so you could buy without being mobbed by street merchants.  You could even venture outside the gates to see the town, nobody would stop you.

Sounds my kind of hotel Disneyfied Cuzco. I bet they sold cute fluffy llama toys as well.

Yep.

In my twenties and thirties I loved all that truly authentic stuff, the real deal, getting down and dirty with the locals, tents, camping, sleeping in the back of vans and kipping on strangers mattresses. I used to be able to blag my way round Europe, hitching lifts and begging nicely for cups of coffee. Dirt, discomfort, not washing bits of my body for days didn't even cross my mind, just didn't care as long as I was having adventures and meeting interesting eccentrics, all was cool. Had some hair-raising times but what the heck.  
I cant do that stuff any more. Now I need rigorous hygiene, I need salmonella-free food, I need comfort and luxury. I need crisp white sheets, air-con, a bidet, lovely food, and security far, far, away from the noise and bustle of any local. A spa would be nice as well. Wallowing in luxury is now my bag, man. Call it incipient old-age if you will.

Mrs Figg wrote:

Orwell wrote:

Mrs Figg wrote:

Orwell wrote:Me, if I have to leave home, only stay at hotels.

Me too, and nothing less than 4 star and preferably 5 star hotels.

I am so done with shitting in the woods.

I never knew that about you....

I still have that talent, its just latent.

Latent but not lately, I presume....

Mrs Figg wrote:In my twenties and thirties I loved all that truly authentic stuff, the real deal, getting down and dirty with the locals, tents, camping, sleeping in the back of vans and kipping on strangers mattresses. I used to be able to blag my way round Europe, hitching lifts and begging nicely for cups of coffee. Dirt, discomfort, not washing bits of my body for days didn't even cross my mind, just didn't care as long as I was having adventures and meeting interesting eccentrics, all was cool. Had some hair-raising times but what the heck.  
I cant do that stuff any more. Now I need rigorous hygiene, I need salmonella-free food, I need comfort and luxury. I need crisp white sheets, air-con, a bidet, lovely food, and security far, far, away from the noise and bustle of any local. A spa would be nice as well. Wallowing in luxury is now my bag, man. Call it incipient old-age if you will.

By Eru’s bristles! You’ve become a hobbit!

oh yeah, you are right!

Mrs Figg wrote:     oh yeah, you are right!

Lucky fuck...

{{ I dont do posh hotels, or anything above 1 star, preferably no stars. For a simple reason, I have one of those faces, and bodies, and personalities that screams 'scum!' and in posh places I just look like I'm there to rob it. Same if I try to get a tailored suit, I just look like I mugged someone and stole it. If I go into posh stores security people follow me about till there's a train of them. I dont do smart. Never have. I don't 'scrub up well' or at all in fact, I just look like a tramp that got caught in heavy rain. }}

There is a lot to be said for Not looking like one of those super groomed hipsters with the skinny jeans and sculpted beards.

You've got hipsters over there too?

yep indeedy we do. They all look the same hipster clone. Skinny tightest jeans with ankles showing, white tennis shoes or brogues, quiff, and bushy sculptural beard with no egg sandwich lingering in it. Fragrant and toned to perfection. maybe tattoos, maybe piercings, shoulder man-bag and designer shades. Called Jamie or Jack. Loves real ale and gastro-pubs, not keen on women even though heterosexual. Collects stuff like vinyl records, doesn't 'do' the countryside.

Ah, the music selection is what makes them worth keeping. The hipster enclave around here does a very creditable job of maintaining the 1930's vibe - if you close your eyes you can't tell a hipster band apart from a scratchy record.

Used to be their drink was National Bohemian ("Natty-bo") though they've definitely upscaled to interesting beer.

My problem is it seems to be they are hipsters or nothing. No Punks, Goths, New Romantics, New Wavers, Scallies, Surfer Dudes, Hippies, Soft Crusties, Hard Crusties, Rockers, Mods.
Just hipsters. maybe it is me and I am not longer able to identify youth movements...and these are just the White dudes.....the Black Dudes seem to have their own genres.